BIRDS 

THAfT WORK 

FOR US 




BROWN 




Book. 






Gopyriglitl^?_ 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSm 



43 



45 



47 



BIRDS 

THAT WORK FOR US 



By COL. ISAAC W. BROWN 
**The Bird and Bee Man" 




Teacher's Journal Company 

Marion, Indiana 






COPYRIGHT ISn 



TEACHER'S Journal Company 




)CLA289?li 




QUAIL 



isai 



CONTENTS 

Introduction, 

Dedication, 

The Oriole, 

Jennie Wren, . 

The Quail — Bob White, 

The Meadow Lark, 

The Red-Headed Woodpecker, 

The Blue Bird, 

The Swift Swallow, 

The Purple Martin, 

The Brown Thrush, 

The Bee Bird. 

The Chipping Sparrow and the 
Cat-Bird, . . , ^ 

The English Sparrow, 

The Song Sparrow — The Closing 

Chapter on Birds, . . gi 



PAGE 

6 

8 

11 

19 

25 

35 

41 

52 

59 

64 

71 

74 

80 

85 



Thk Toad and thje: Bumbi^k Bke 
The Toad, ..... 103 
The Bumble Bee, ... ^Qg 



INTRODUCTION 



The author of this booklet, Colonel Isaac 
W. Brown, for many years has been talk- 
ing to Chautauquas, farmers ' institutes and 
school children about birds and bees, so that 
he is known throughout the United States 
as the ' 'Bird and Bee Man. ' ' Hundreds of 
thousands, from New York to San Francis- 
co, from the Lakes to the Gulf, have been 
enlightened and charmed by his talks on 
birds. The stories in this booklet were 
taken by a stenographer just as given by 
Col. Brown to his audiences. At his re- 
quest very few changes have been made. 
The individuality of the speaker has been 
preserved as far as possible. 

In the conservation of natural resources 
birds are recognized as one of the greatest 
factors. Our governments, both National 
and State, recognize this fact, and there are 
many laws on our statute books that impose 



BIRDS THAT WORK FOR VS 

fines for destroying birds and bird's nests. 
Most of the birds discussed in these pages 
are our sweet singers, the ones we see about 
our farms and homes. They need help and 
protection. Those who read this booklet 
will certainly be awakened to the fact that 
the protection of birds is not only humane, 
but pleasurable and profitable. The teacher 
who reads these bird stories to her pupils 
will not only delight them, but arouse new 
interest in our sweet songsters and 
feathered helpers. Boys will be made the 
friends and protectors of the birds instead 
of their enemies and destroyers. They will 
know how to help them in their nest build- 
ing and protect them from their enemies. 
It is our belief that this booklet will have 
much the same effect in changing the atti- 
tude of both young and old toward the care 
and protection of birds as did '^ Black 
Beauty'' upon the treatment of horses. 

These lectures are published at the re- 
quest of thousands who have been profited 
and delighted by hearing them. 



DEDICATION 



EIGHT years ago I had bestow- 
ed upon me an honor far 
greater in my philosophy, 
than will be bestowed upon my life 
long friend, John W. Kern, when, 
tomorrow, he shall be introduced 
to Vice-President Sherman and 
take the oath as United States 
Senator. 

I was invited to visit Miss Helen 
Miller Gould at her summer home 
in Roxbury, N. Y. I approached 
the home in fear and trembling, for 
I was a Hoosier farmer with Hoos- 
ier ways I could not change, if I 
would; and would not, if I could. I 
knew how to work fifteen hours a 
day and eat with an iron fork for 
fifteen minutes, but I did not know 
how to rest twenty-one hours a day 
and eat mth a silver fork three 



BIRDS THAT WORK FOR US 

hours a day. It took but a very few 
minutes to discover that, instead of 
being in the home of an aristocrat, 
I was the guest of an ardent, de- 
vout Christian lady; a tireless en- 
thusiastic student of nature, with 
a heart throbbing for others' woes. 

For two days she listened to the 
stories I told to children in hall 
and school, and then gave me the 
golden opportunity of my life to 
go to the school children in the far 
away Sunny South and talk to 
them of forces in nature. 

For four long, happy, happy 
years I was her salaried servant, 
treated by her and her representa- 
tives just as if I was her sure 
enough uncle. During those four 
years I talked to hundreds of 
thousands of school children in 
twenty-six different States and 
was enabled, by her benefaction, 
to tell the stories of God and His 
glory as represented in the birds to 
more teachers, preachers and pu- 



BIRDS THAT WORK FOR US 

pils than any man has ever ad- 
dressed since the stars sang to- 
gether. 

In sweet memorj^ of those happy 
years, to Miss Gould, who, to me, is 
America's uncrowned Queen, is 
this little book dedicated. 

ISAAC W. BROWN. 




10 



BIRDS THAT WORK 
FOR US 



THE ORIOLE 

THERE are many varieties of 
Orioles under the stars and 
stripes, but this chapter has 
to do with but two of them, the 
Baltimore and Orchard, both in- 
correctly named. 

When Lord Baltimore was in 
our country many years ago, he 
was a great Nature student and 
bird lover, and after spending some 
time with our birds pointed to an 
Oriole with the remark that it was 
the prettiest of all our feathered 
friends. His hearers, in honor of 
him, immediately began calling 
that creature the Baltimore Ori- 
ole, and so it is known today. 

11 



BIRDS THAT WORK FOR US 

If J instead of just admiring its 
beauty, he had made a care- 
ful study of its usefulness and 
called it the Orchard or Apple Ori- 
ole, he would have conferred a last- 
ing benefit upon the fruit inter- 
ests of our country; for it is strict- 
ly an Orchard Oriole, while the 
bird called the Orchard Oriole is 
not often found in the orchard, but 
it is more given to living along the 
fences of the meadow and in the 
woodland where bushes and thick- 
ets abound. 

The Baltimore Oriole comes to 
Indiana in the spring time, the sec- 
ond day after the apple trees com- 
mence blooming and is heard and 
seen among those beautiful apple 
blossoms. He is always accompan- 
ied by his wife and no happier 
brides and bride-grooms than they 
appear in our State. They have 
certain lives appointed for them to 
live and, being true to their na- 
ture, they obey the laws of their 
being. They belong to the Weav- 

12 



TEE ORIOLE 

ers, and their bills are fashioned 
for weaving as well as for eating. 
The first week of their visit to this 
State is spent gathering breakfast, 
dinner and supper from the fruit 
trees. Those long, sharp bills are 
placed in the blossom or under the ' 
leaf close thereto and millions of 
minute eggs and insects are de- 
voured as greedily as school chil- 
dren devour chocolate caramels. 
An ordinary observer, spending 
one hour with a pair of Orioles in 
the orchard, must admit that at 
least five times every minute those 
birds strike for food. Ten strokes 
per minute means six hundred 
strokes per hour; and six hundred 
strokes per hour means seven thou- 
sand two hundred strokes in a day 
of twelve hours. And what a vari- 
ety of food is obtained? 

I have now to say a word or two 
concerning the Codling Moth, that 
innocent looking little butterfly 
that oft-times compells us Hoosier 
people to send to Oregon and 

13 



BIRDS THAT WORK FOR US 

Washington for apples. The Cod- 
ling Moth is nocturnal in its hab- 
its. That is to say, it flies only aft- 
er night. If you would see it at 
work, gentle reader, place an elec- 
tric lamp close to your apple tree 
when the blossoms are blooming, 
climb up into the tree, keep per- 
fectly quiet ten or fifteen minutes, 
between eleven and twelve o'clock 
at night; then have the light turn- 
ed on instantly and look at it 
through the blossoms. Presently 
you will see the moth going from 
blossom to blossom and leaf to leaf, 
depositing its eggs thereon. Those 
eggs will hatch, the one in the blos- 
som will develop in the apple and, 
in the worm condition, ruin the ap- 
ple 's core. Then, fearing to be 
manufactured into cider and apple 
butter, it will tunnel outward, 
making its escape in the night 
time, going to the ground or hiding 
under the bark of the tree, it will 
weave around itself a little cocoon, 
a suit of clothes, and spend a win- 



THE ORIOLE 

ter there in peace, free from the 
din of tariff discussion or fear of 
high cost of living. 

Those eggs are to the Orioles 
just what a delicious country 
home-made chicken pot-pie is to a 
Methodist preacher and all day 
long, from sunny morn till dewy 
eve, they spend the time eating, 
eating, eating. In my philosophy 
that Codling Moth and its eggs are 
high heaven's preparation of 
breakfast food for the Orioles and 
various other birds that are order- 
ed to live amidst the blossoms. 

^^ Behold the fowls of the air, 
they sow not, neither do they reap, 
nor gather into barns, but your 
Heavenly Father feedeth them.'' 
Matthew vi : 26. 

There will come a time in the 
history of our country when our 
Father's right to beautify our or- 
chards with his musicians and set 
their dinner table for them on the 
leaves and blossoms will be fully 
recognized, and then we will do our 

15 



BIRDS THAT WORK FOR US 

part. We shall study the nature of 
the bird as to its home making and 
discover that there are several 
things we can do, and that while 
we are doing them we are probably 
living as harmoniously with Him 
as while we are on our bended 
knees begging more favors at His 
hands. We shall discover that ap- 
preciation and thankfulness are 
just as proper as prayer, and that 
appreciation of and thankfulness 
to Him for favors strewn along our 
pathway all through the journey 
of life had better be given than 
begging for more while ignoring 
the present. 

The Baltimore Oriole, as stated 
above, is a Weaver, and must have 
first, a tree with swinging branch- 
es in which to weave its home. Sec- 
ondly, it must probably have from 
one to two hundred hairs from 
^horses' or cows' tails and then six- 
ty to one hundred cotton strings, 
each about eighteen inches long. 
The trees are plentiful, the long 

16 



THE ORIOLE 

hairs can easily be found in the 
road and you are thinking just 
now, kind reader, that the strings 
are plentiful also; but in that 
thought you are mistaken. Our 
country is over-run with English 
Sparrows; they commence build- 
ing their nests one month before 
the Baltimore Oriole arrives and 
gather up all the strings in the vi- 
cinity of their homes, using them 
with which to line their nests. The 
church steeples, the school cupola 
and deserted buildings in your 
neighborhood are now partly filled 
with strings carried there by Eng- 
lish Sparrows for home-making 
purposes. Then, what is the rem- 
edy? Why, you believe in mission- 
ary work. You collect money and 
support missionaries in India and 
China for the spreading of the 
Gospel to God's children there. 
Why not collect one hundred cot- 
ton strings and spread them out 
under the trees about your house 
when the apple trees are in bloom 

17 ' 



BIRDS THAT WORK FOR US 

for the helping of God^s grand- 
children here, his feathered song- 
sters, so easily helped, so perfectly 
willing and anxious to repay that 
kindness more than one hundred- 
fold? 



W 



18 



JENNIE WREN 

WHEN a man seeks to tell 
the true story of Jennie 
Wren and her life he 
is treading on dangerous ground, 
for he must tell some things that 
seem too strange to be true, and 
he must admit that he only knows 
a part of the story of her life. 

She is so bright with her little 
brain, less than the size of a pea, 
that she winters in Central Ameri- 
ca and flies back after night to her 
home in Indiana about the first day 
of May without making any mis- 
take. When she arrives in our 
good old Hoosier State she is a de- 
pendent creature; much more de- 
pendent now than sixty years ago 
when I first began studying her. 
She is flying about our homes and 
sajdng plainly in bird language; 

19 



BIRDS THAT WORK FOR US 

^^Good Hoosiers, won't you help 
me to a little home too?" ^^I should 
like to have out there in the grape 
arbor about six feet from the 
ground an old tin can, a rusty cof- 
fee pot, or a little wooden box eight 
or eleven inches square with a hole 
in it about the size of thirtv-five 
cents. If you make that hole as 
large as a fifty-cent piece the Eng- 
lish Sparrows can enter and pester 
my children; if you make it as 
large as a twenty-five cent piece I 
can squeeze in, but I can't carry 
the twigs that I ought to have for 
the foundation for my home/' 

When we people have a fair ap- 
preciation of Jennie's husband's 
musical qualities and Jennie's 
work, those homes will be furnish- 
ed as freely as we now contribute 
to reform measures for India and 
China. 

The home building by Jennie is 
an interesting study. First, she 
does practically all of the work and 
is perfectly willing to do that work 

20 



JENNIE WREN 

provided that, while so engaged, 
she may hear her husband singing, 
and she will not work unless she 
does. Therefore, a music stand in 
front of her home is an absolute ne- 
cessity. A twig on the grapevine, 
a perch on the syringa bush or a 
stick driven into the ground with 
an old straw hat for a shade, fur- 
nishes the ideal place for the mu- 
sician. 

Into the box are carried fifty to 
eighty dead twigs from three to 
eight inches in length, and when 
the last three are so carried in 
about one inch of each of them is 
left protruding from the hole. I 
may say right here that after fifty 
years of observation I have not 
seen one occupied Wren box with- 
out from one to three twigs pro- 
truding from the entrance. Just 
why they are so left neither Jen- 
nie nor her husband has, as yet, in- 
formed me. I have inferred that 
the fifty to eighty twigs were plac- 
ed in the bottom of the box for ven- 

21 



BIRDS TEAT WORK FOR US 

tilating purposes because Jennie 
is a prolific mother, having usually 
six children in that box at a time 
and filling it in that way three 
times each season. 

Gentle reader, will you stop long 
enough to think that our Jennie 
Wren is more prolific than the Eng- 
lish Sparrow; and that, if we were 
as careful to furnish homes for her 
as we are to see that our church 
steeples and school house cupolas 
were open for the Sparrow, we 
might cover our country with 
Wrens ? 

After the foundation is laid the 
building of the nest proper is an in- 
tricate, arduous duty. The gather- 
ing of soft pieces of lichen, the lit- 
tle strings that are to be torn into 
shreds and the soft, downy feathers 
occupy that little married lady's 
time from daybreak until dark; and 
then six eggs, in seven days, six ba- 
bies, and all the time sweet music 
from the music stand. 

Twenty-five days of work, twen- 

22 



JENNIE WREN 

ty-five days during which time that 
mother will visit her children more 
than one hundred times each day, 
carrying food to them. Twenty-five 
days of searching every little nook 
and corner about our homes, flit- 
ting along next to the fence under 
the current bushes; darting 
through the syringa and cannas; 
resting a moment while she looks 
with her piercing eye on the hy- 
drangea; darting beneath the rhu- 
barb leaves; flitting through the 
buggy shed, under the eaves of the 
the barn; and all the time scaven- 
gering the places visited, carrying 
to her children the insects that we 
oftimes regard as pests, but which 
are in reality High Heaven's Malta 
Vita, poached eggs, dry toast, veal 
loaf and custard pie for His great 
grandchildren, the birds. 

Gentle reader, will you have a 
little garden this spring and sum- 
mer? And will you try to raise a 
few heads of cabbage? If you do, 
then note that when the heads of 

23 



BIRDS THAT WORK FOR US 

the cabbage plant begin forming 
little white butterflies will visit 
them; little eggs will be deposited 
on the cabbage leaves. Five days 
thereafter green worms will begin 
crawling around. Eight days there- 
after you will be standing, looking 
at them as they work and saying 
you don^t believe it pays to try to 
have a garden like jou used to, too 
many insects. But, if next year 
JOU will put up a little home for 
Jennie and her musical husband, 
you will discover that that white 
cabbage moth is one of her most de- 
licious, choice articles of food and 
that while you are hearing her hus- 
band's music before sunlight in the 
morning she is taking care of your 
garden for you. 



W 



24 



THE QUAIL- BOB WHITE 

THE QUAIL generally seen 
by most people has been 
used as a target ever since 
the invention of the shot gun. 
The Quail of which I speak to 
you is the Quail of my boyhood 
days, the Quail of your grandpa's 
boyhood; the one that, in the olden 
times, came and stood on the or- 
chard or wheatfield fence, close up 
to the house and said ^^Bob White, 
Bob White," so sweetly. He was 
just talking to his little wife, Em- 
ma Louise, just inside the fence. 
What did those two birds want in 
that far away time? Just two 
things — a space six inches square 
on the edge of the orchard or 
wheatfield, and the kindly treat- 
ment you are glad to receive. Two 
things, that is all they asked then 

25 



BIRDS TEAT WORK FOR US 

and all they ask now. Given that 
kindly treatment and that much 
space in the orchard, quickly a lit- 
tle home is made and into it placed 
1, 2, 5j 9, 15, 25 eggs. They are 
placed there so carefully that, if 
you remove two you can scarcely 
put one back into that charmed cir- 
cle; and then, nineteen days after 
the last egg is laid you see a little, 
fluffy fellow about an inch high or 
as big as the end of your little fin- 
ger, sticking his little head up. In 
fifty years of chmnming with the 
quail I have never known one egg 
to fail to hatch while the mother 
was permitted to sit undisturbed. 
Every egg will hatch in less than 
fiftj^-five minutes from the time the 
first shell breaks, and then, in less 
than thirty-five minutes from that 
time, up from off the nest will get 
mannna, leaving her home forever. 
What does mama say to her chil- 
dren ? Just this : ' ' Children, it was 
arranged creation day that the 
quail should be the most prolific 

26 



THE QUAIL 

bird on the earth. That the quail 
should raise more young in a year 
than any other bird known to na- 
ture students and, as I am to have 
so many children, it would be im- 
possible for me to gather food for 
you. Therefore, I will point it out 
for you and you gather it your- 
selves.'' 

Think, young people, that the 
most prolific bird on the earth is 
so independent that when the birds 
are thirty or forty minutes old they 
are able to follow their mother and 
get that food. 

When interfered with by intrud- 
ers, see how mother Quail acts. Go 
a little closer and mama, in order 
to protect her children, deserts 
them; all she knows to do. She will 
fly about seventy-five feet, turn her 
head gracefully and alight in the 
stubble. She wants you to think 
there are no children there, but you 
know there are. Papa bird will fly 
one-third the distance she did, 
and turning his head upward, will 

27 



BIRDS THAT WORK FOR US 

soon fall dead to the ground. That 
moment when mama flies the sev- 
enty-five feet she just touches the 
ground and then slips back to with- 
in a few feet of her children. Papa, 
seeming to fall dead, is watching 
you closely all the time. If you go 
to where he fell to get him, you will 
discover a lunatic that will run 
about you and against you, risking 
his life, in order that the ruse that 
he and his wife are resorting to in 
order to save their children from 
you, may be carried out. If you 
still persist in trjdng to get one of 
his little ones, quickly he will be 
three or four feet in front of you 
with one eye closed, one wing brok- 
en and hanging to the ground, a leg 
out of joint, his tail just going to 
fall out of his body, and leering up 
into your face, wants you to catch 
him. If you attempt it you will be 
able to get within two feet of him, 
and then, crippled as he is, he will 
move three or four feet. You will 
try again and again, and he will get 

28 



THE QUAIL 

you twenty-five feet away from Ms 
children in spite of yourself, and 
then he will fly up as well as ever. 
You will then go back to get that 
little one with the half shell on its 
back, but you are too late. The 
mama, when she flew the seventy- 
flve feet, just touched the ground, 
and then, pit-a-pat, with her little 
feet, she has run to where her chil- 
dren are, and when her husband de- 
coys you away she leads them 
through the stubble and grass to 
safety. Nineteen times out of 
twenty they will save their child- 
ren by that ruse or a similar one. 

Do you think, young people, that 
your Father, our God, would create 
two such brilliant birds and fail to 
provide food for them? Didn't our 
Master in that great sermon on the 
mount say ^^ Behold the fowls of 
the air; they sow not, neither do 
they reap nor gather into barns, 
but your Heavenly Father feedeth 
them.'' I ask you, therefore, to go 
with me in fancy, into the wheat- 

29 



BIRDS THAT WORK FOR US 

field and see one of the choice mor- 
sels of food prepared for ^^Bob 
White.'' 

Dd you ever stop to think, young 
folks, that whatever you try to 
grow, in orchard, field or garden, 
will be bothered with an insect of 
some kind? Come, go with me to 
the plum or pear tree, and stand- 
ing there, I will show you a little 
creature, the curculio. Come with 
me to the cotton field, down among 
the leaves another little insect eat- 
ing up the young growth. Come, 
go to the potato field. There is the 
little creature, sapping the life out 
of the potatoes; come and look up 
into the blooming apple tree and I 
will show you the codling moth. 
Everybody says they are pests. 
Listen! There aren't any pests in 
the world into which you are com- 
ing. The insect pests are in nine- 
ty-nine cases out of a hundred 
God's prepared bird food for his 
birds. 

Picture a wheat field on the 

30 



THE QUAIL 

fourth of July. Just the stubble is 
left. The Hessian fly is the curse. 
You will find them about one inch 
from the ground, on the stubble. If 
you see them you can't tell the dif- 
ference between them and the or- 
dinary mosquito. What are they 
doing there? Five hundred thous- 
and of them in that field; females. 
They are waiting and hoping to ex- 
ist some way until that farmer 
shall plow up the field adjoining 
and put out the wheat for the next 
year's crop, and w^hen the wheat 
shall be an inch tall in September 
they will fly to the little growing 
blades. There hundreds of little 
eggs will be hatched in a few days. 
All these little worms (really the 
larvae condition of the Hessian 
Fly) will burrow into the stock 
and stay happily all fall and win- 
ter. They leave a little scar as 
they extract the sap of the wheat 
for their food, and, next year, when 
the wheat begins to develop there 
is not enough strength left for it to 

31 



BIRDS THAT WORK FOR US 

mature the golden grain on the top 
of the stock. 

When are the quails hatched? 
Ask your grandpa if it isn't true 
that the Robin hatches early in the 
spring; the Blue Bird and the Ori- 
ole. These are full grown by the 
first of June, and the Quails are not 
hatched until the last of June and 
the first of July. 

Suppose the man that owns the 
wheat field should be as kind to 
God's creatures as you have been 
to me for the past half hour, and 
should treat five pairs of Quails to 
a pleasant home in his field during 
October, November, December, 
January, February, March, April, 
May and June. And those five 
pairs of birds shall have their lit- 
tle home close up to the orchard 
and the edge of the wheatfield, and 
on the first day of July start ramb- 
ling through the field, and right 
here, my young friends, let me call 
your attention to this bulletin 
published by the government. It 

32 



TEE QUAIL 

is entitled ^^The Economic Value 
of Bob White.'' And do you see 
here the picture of Bob White and 
his wife, taken in the potato field 
by America's eminent biologist. 
Dr. Judd? In this bulletin Secre- 
tary Wilson says that the Bob 
White is probably the most useful 
species on the farm. It does not 
injure fruit or grain and is the ideal 
rambler living its whole life in one 
or two fields, if permitted to do so. 

Suppose that these five pairs of 
birds, twenty to the pair, one 
hundred of them start at break of 
day for breakfast in that wheat 
stubble, striking, striking, strik- 
ing, running, romping, eating, 
playing, the number of Hessian 
flies destroyed at one breakfast is 
almost beyond computation. Each 
bird getting, for instance, five in- 
sects in a minute; sixty minutes an 
hour, three hours for the breakfast 
time. 

O, young people, good-bye to 
you; when will we awaken to the 

33 



BIRDS THAT WORK FOR US 

fact that our Father is much, much 
better than even the preachers 
claim for Him. That He provides 
the golden wheat in the harvest 
field for us, but that He also pro- 
vides beneath that growing grain 
some bird food; so that in His econ- 
omy our old mother earth may be 
covered with birds of beauty for 
His fatherly eyes as well as ours 
and that in connection with the 
bees that buzz, the flowers that 
bloom, they may make this earth a 
Garden of Eden. 



W 



34 



THE MEADOW LARK 

THIS morning I heard the first 
Song Sparrow of the year. 
It is the ninth day of Febru- 
ary and the birds are starting back 
to us. The Meadow Lark will be 
here in about two weeks, usually 
about the first of March. Why do 
we call it the Meadow Lark? Be- 
cause it lives in the meadow. It 
belongs to the family of Orioles. It 
weaves its nest, but not out of 
string and hair like the Baltimore 
Orioles. It finds a grassy place on 
the ground and conceals its home 
with grass. So, if you have been 
across the meadow you have been 
within five feet of the Meadow 
Lark's nest and did not know it. If 
you go with me some morning 
studying nature you will see that 
the mother Lark sleeps on the chil- 

35 



BIRDS THAT WORE FOR US 

dren and papa about a foot and a 
half from them, but with his head 
pointing toward them all the time. 
Four babies, mama and papa. Just 
at day break mama gets off her nest 
and starts in one direction and 
papa in another, both keeping 
close to the ground all the time, for 
fear some one might see them. 
Mama will be back in about two 
minutes and so will papa and they 
will come to that nest more than 
one hundred times every day, car- 
rying food for those little, long, 
yellow-necked beauties. And so it 
is all day long. What kind of food 
are they getting ? Think a moment. 
There is no grain in a meadow; no 
fruit in a meadow. What are they 
getting? They are getting little 
wire worms. These little worms are 
about half an inch long. How did 
they come there? I will tell you. 
There is a little beetle called the 
click beetle and it flies into the 
meadow and lays many little eggs. 
The little eggs are hatched and out 

36 



THE MEADOW LARK 

from them crawls the little wire 
worm. If there were no birds to 
go into the meadow those worms 
w^ould ruin all the hay crops every 
year, but here comes the Song 
Sparrow, the Tit-Lark and the 
Meadow Lark. All day long those 
birds are carrying out of the 
meadow the very creatures that we 
think are pests, but are really put 
there by the Owner of the birds, 
your Father, as food for His birds. 

If you go through the meadow 
with a gun or a sling shot, the 
Meadow Lark will hide from you 
or through the meadow where the 
people are kind and walking 
around like gentlemen and ladies, 
up on a stump or on the fence, that 
Meadow Lark will fly and sing 
you a sweet little song and then go 
back to the meadow to work. 

When the Meadow Lark goes 
south the people change his name. 
They call him the Field Lark. They 
change his name and he changes his 
song. 

37 



BIRDS THAT WORK FOR US 

A few years ago a New York 
young lady, who, on account of her 
wonderful love for the people and 
her great benefactions, is properly 
called America's uncrowned queen, 
was kind enough to send me into 
the Southland to study southern in- 
sects and Southern birds. 

I spent one year in the State of 
Texas and a little more than one 
month of that time in a cotton field, 
studying the Mexican Cotton Boll 
Weevil. I wanted to get its history 
from its own lips so that I might 
tell the school children the true 
story of its life. It is a Mexican in- 
sect and was held in check in Old 
Mexico for thousands of years by 
the birds. The people in that coun- 
try slaughtered so many of their 
feathered songsters that the bird 
life became scarce and the bird 
food increased in quantity. They 
killed their sweetest, prettiest 
songsters and shipped them to 
Paris in order that the women over 
there might make walking ceme- 

38 



THE MEADOW LARK 

teries of themselves as they ex- 
posed on their hats the little dry 
corpses of God Almighty's great- 
grandchildren. 

The weevil escaped beyond the 
Rio Grande and is now the present 
pest and curse of Elng Cotton. The 
only hope, in my philosophy, that 
the cotton grower has is in the ac- 
cumulation of the number and va- 
riety of birds expected to be in the 
South creation day. Of all those 
birds probably the Field Lark is 
the most valuable; because, being 
strictly insectivorous and living in 
the field just as indicated by the 
name they have given him, he 
spends practically half of each year 
in that southern country. 

The Mexican Cotton Boll Weevil, 
like our Colorado Beetle (the pota- 
to beetle) is a hibernating creature. 
That is to say, instead of dying in 
the fall, he goes to sleep; but in- 
stead of going beneath the frost 
line, as does our Colorado beetle, 
he sleeps under a cotton stalk, in 

39 



BIRDS TEAT WORK FOE U8 

the end of a corn stalk, under a lit- 
tle piece of bark in a tuft of grass 
or any place that seems to furnish 
security, but does not burrow into 
the ground. He is therefore, in the 
cotton field, in a dormant condition 
all of the time that our Meadow 
Lark, their Field Lark, is in that 
field hunting food, and is, of all in- 
sects there the choicest, juciest, 
richest diet for the birds. 



W 



40 



THE 
RED-HEADED WOOD- 
PECKER 

ALL the birds were divided cre- 
ation day for working pur- 
poses, for their relation to 
other creatures, into four classes. 
Their Owner, their Creator, fash- 
ioned them well for their work. The 
student of economic conditions is, 
therefore, confronted in his bird 
study with seeing, throbbing, beau- 
tifully colored machinery so per- 
fect that improvements are impos- 
sible. These classes may be brief- 
ly stated as follows : First, the birds 
that scavenger the air; the Swift 
Swallow, the Barn Swallow, the 
Wood Pee-wee, the Bee Bird, the 
Flycatchers, etc. Second, the 
birds that scavenger the ground 

41 



BIRDS THAT WORK FOR US 



and water; the Wild Turkey, the 
Pheasant, the Quail, the Meadow 
Lark, the Tit-Lark, etc. Third, the 
birds that scavenger the blossoms 
and leaves; the Orioles, Vireos, the 
Humming Birds, Warblers, etc. 
Fourth, the birds that scavenger 
the trees, getting their breakfast, 
dinner and supper off of, or from 
under the bark; the Creepers, the 
Nuthatches, the Chickadees, the 
Sapsuckers, the Red-headed Wood- 
peckers, etc. 

When I first commenced study- 
ing birds more than fifty years ago 
in this good old Hoosier State, my 
mother taught me many things 
about the Redheaded Woodpecker. 
She told me how he was a car- 
penter, and that with his hard, 
ivory bill he was able to cut a hole 
into the dead limb or tree and, 
working downward, was soon able 
to chisel himself out a home. She 
taught me also that to aid him in 
his work as a carpenter he carried 
his own scaffold with hun; that the 



42 



THE REDHEADED WOODPECKER 



ends of Ms tail feathers were very 
sharp and that when he was work- 
ing at his home he placed those 
sharp points in the wood beneath 
his feet and there, braced by his 
own scaffold, was a truly great ar- 
chitect and carpenter. 

But, if while mother was teach- 
ing me some man had said ^^ Moth- 
er Brown, that bird up there that 
you are pointing out to that anx- 
ious son of yours, is worth ten dol- 
lars for the work he does, for he is 
the bird that scavengers the trees 
and thereby protects them from 
death dealing worms," mother 
would have received the suggestion 
with pity for, we did not want the 
trees protected. 

She taught me also that the male 
Redheaded Woodpecker was 
sometimes a vain, self-important 
bird, and that many times when not 
employed, he would get on the roof 
of the house, or on the dead limb of 
a tree and, making a loud noise 
with his bill, would challenge the 



43 



BIRDS THAT WORK FOR US 

other red heads in the neighbor- 
hood to mortal combat, and when 
the challenge was accepted, as it 
usually would be right quickly, 
both birds would soon change their 
minds and defer the battle to a fu- 
ture day. 

O, how different their fighting 
qualities from the pioneer fight- 
ers of yonder time. In that 
far away day when our pros- 
perous cities of now were but 
the little villages in the woods, 
the rugged farmer of that 
blessed time came to the village 
and, stepping out into the road, 
said, ^^I am the best man in this 
town.'^ The truthfulness of his 
statement would probably be set- 
tled in less than thirty minutes. 
Ask your grandpa, kind reader, 
about those olden times. No 
wonder that the sons of those 
pioneers were able to bring victory, 
peace and prosperity out of the 
civil war. 

I spent a large portion of the 

44 



THE REDHEADED WOODPECKER 

first twelve years of my life help- 
ing my father in the clearing, dead- 
ening, falling and burning giant 
walnut, oak and poplar trees so 
plentiful that they were a nuisance ; 
so in the way that the pioneers' 
best days were spent in destroying 
them. I have helped my father in 
Carroll county, Indiana, destroy 
walnut trees that would today sell 
for $250.00 each. There are large 
farms in that county that to- 
day are worth $150.00 an acre on 
account of their high state of culti- 
vation. But, if they were now just 
as fifty-five years ago, with ten or 
twelve giant walnut trees on each 
acre, they would be worth two 
thousand dollars an acre for the 
timber alone. 

Fifty-five years from today tim- 
ber will be selling by the pound in- 
stead of by the foot. The day of 
large trees is gone, and gone^^for- 
ever. The man who does not know 
that climatic conditions are getting 
each year more and more unf avor- 

45 



BIRDS TEAT WORK FOR US 



able to large timber growth has liv- 
ed in vain. The birds that have to 
do with the protection of timber 
are, therefore, natural resources. 
The young walnut tree of today 
worth twenty dollars, will be worth 
many times twenty twenty-five 
years from now. What part will 
the birds have in protecting that 
tree? 

The Red-headed Woodpecker, a 
perfectly independent creature, 
asks only to be let alone and the use 
of eight inches square on the old 
dead limb. A home is made; four 
snowy white eggs, and in a few 
days four little, black-headed. Red- 
headed Woodpeckers. Black-head- 
ed because the Red-headed Wood- 
pecker's head does not turn red un- 
til he is more than a year old. There 
is nothing cuter in Nature Study 
than the black head of the Red- 
head when it first puts it to the top 
of its home. For twenty-five days 
those children must be fed more 
than seventy-five times a day, and 

46 



THE REDHEADED WOODPECKER 

what of that food? The man with 
the gun, the man with a blood-thirs- 
ty ambition to see something die, 
will say that fruit is a part of the 
food ; but he is a miserable liar. No 
man ever saw the Red-headed 
Wood-pecker carrying anything to 
his children but insects and insect 
larvae. 

We have many varieties of bor- 
ers in this State. Some of them, 
like the peach tree borer, that once 
getting into the root of a peach tree 
is immune from natural destroyers. 
Others, like the giant borer that 
goes to the limb of the tree, bores a 
little hole half the size of a lead 
pencil, half an inch deep, and de- 
posits thirty to sixty eggs. In a few 
days those eggs will develop into 
little worms, and then, true to their 
nature they go boring down that 
limb, under the bark, devouring the 
sap and part of the wood of the 
tree, until the time comes for them 
to go to sleep and, finally breaking 
the thin bark over themselves, 

47 



BIRDS TEAT WORK FOB US 



emerge with wings. There are just 
two checks to that borer, and if 
those two checks should be de- 
stroyed every tree in this State 
would be dead in less than one- 
quarter of a century. The first 
natural check is that peculiar fly 
that must have a living thing in 
which to put its egg and while 
seeking for a living thing it is able 
to smell through the very thin bark 
covering the borer worm, and 
thrusting its ovipositor through 
that bark, using the worm as a nest 
in changing its nature. The sec- 
ond check is the wood scavenger- 
ing birds, the Red-headed Wood- 
pecker at the head of the list. He 
goes flying from limb to limb in the 
tree tops looking for food. Beneath 
him on the same tree may be a 
Creeper slowly circling around on 
the bark, striking once a second, 
getting the little eggs and minute 
insects. Maybe, between the creep- 
er and the Woodpecker a Titmouse 
or a Chickadee looking into the lit- 

48 



THE REDHEADED WOODPECKER 

tie crevices about the limbs, doing 
the same variety of work, but the 
Woodpecker is seeking the larger 
juicier worm beneath the bark and 
they, being more difficult to discov- 
er, the Woodpecker is the better 
equipped. His hearing quality 
is marvelous and presently he dis- 
covers the home of the worm. A 
few strokes of that ivory bill, a de- 
licious piece of custard pie for lit- 
tle Julia; a few more strokes and 
then breakfast for Katherine; an- 
other stroke and little Emma Lou- 
ise will be less hungry. 

O, people, pity the sorry, sorry 
day when no tree scavengers shall 
visit our State; for we who love 
the shade so well, we who love the 
old bell-elm trees, we who revere 
the memory of the old fashioned 
sugar camp will be lonesome in- 
deed as we live in forests deadened 
by the bird food provided in the 
economy of nature, and allowed by 
our own negligence to increase to 
the calamitous stage. 

49 



BIRDS THAT WORK FOR US 

Some birds are put in the Wood- 
pecker class that do not belong 
there. For instance, the Flicker or 
HGigh-hole, as it is called in the east- 
ern States, is a true ground scav- 
enger and, while he makes his nest 
in the high hole in the tree, does not 
gather his food in or on that tree at 
all. His business is wholly the 
holding of different species of ants 
in check. I have never as yet seen 
one on the ground eating and dis- 
turbed him by going to the spot 
where he was having his repast 
that I did not find there an ant hill 
or an ant hole. Dr. Judd says, in a 
government bulletin, that the 
Flicker eats from three to five thou- 
sand ants per day, 

A few years ago at Winsome Wi- 
nona Lake, Indiana, a great many 
ants made their appearance. The 
authorities acting under the advice 
of some people who knew about 
ants, commenced catering to the 
life of the Flicker. Last year I 
counted seventeen Flickers at one 

50 



THE REDHEADED WOODPECKER 

time at half past four in the morn- 
ing making a breakfast of those 
surplus ants. 

Kind reader, would you have the 
Flicker about your home? If so, 
then help it a little. Get from the 
forest a stick of partly decayed 
wood, four feet long, ten inches in 
diameter, make it securely fast to 
a live limb twenty feet from the 
ground. In that home they will 
have four interesting children and 
destroy each morning about your 
home more than one thousand ants 
from day break until sun-rise. 



W 



^ 



51 



THE BLUE BIRD 

THE story of this interesting 
little creature is truly a sad 
one. From my earliest recol- 
lection it has been the school chil- 
dren's favorite, and yet it is actual- 
ly threatened with extinction. 

In the olden time, before the ad- 
vent of the English Sparrow, Blue 
Birds were very plentiful. Natural 
conditions were very much in their 
favor. The fences in the olden time 
were made of rails, and when the 
knot in the side of the rail would 
decay an ideal home for the Blue 
Bird was furnished. The old time 
apple trees were not trimmed as of 
today and when a hole was found 
in the old apple tree limb there was 
just the apartment house sought by 
the Blue Bird. 

We have substituted wire fences 
for the old time walnut and poplar 

52 



THE BLUE BIRD 

rail fences. We love the Blue Bird 
just as well as in the olden times, 
but forget its habit of nest building 
and expect it to construct a home 
on a barbed wire. 

In the far away days when Blue 
Birds were plentiful, Hoosier ap- 
ples were better than the Florida 
oranges of today. Every grand- 
father of yonder time remembers 
with pleasure the old time Bell- 
flower, Maidenblush and Vandi- 
vere pipin, absolutely perfect and 
two for a penny. He has not stop- 
ped to study nature, probably, but 
if he would think for a minute of 
the disappearance of the old time 
apple and Blue Bird he would be 
surprised at the strange connec- 
tion. 

The Blue Bird was not an acci- 
dent. He was and is the result of 
an attempt on the part of his Owner 
to beautify this earth of ours. And 
wasn^t it a glorious attempt? Is 
there anything prettier in all na- 
ture? The Owner knew that in or- 

53 



BIRDS THAT WORK FOR US 

der to have that domestic bird liv- 
ing close up to the house where it 
might be a beautiful picture for 
grandmother, its breakfast table 
must also be placed close to her 
blessed window. 

Therefore, when He taught the 
apple tree to gather the moisture 
from the earth and in connection 
with His sunlight manufacture that 
moisture into luscious fruit for us, 
He reserved the right to place in 
the orchard, under the shade of the 
old apple tree some food for the 
Blue Bird. Now listen to the story 
of the bird food. 

One of the creatures so harmful 
in the apple orchard is especially 
intelligent, and when the frosts of 
September and October begin to 
fall it weaves around itself a deli- 
cate, close-fitting suit of clothes. 
We call that suit of clothes a co- 
coon. And there, neatly and fash- 
ionably dressed, in the grass or un- 
der the bark of the old apple tree 
that creature spends the fall and 

54 



TEE BLUE BIRD 

winter, not caring whether there 
shall be an extra session of the leg- 
islature or whether the ladies' hats 
shall be larger this year than last. 
Just as the apple blossoms begin to 
bloom in the spring time that crea- 
ture will emerge from its now 
slightly w^orn winter garments and, 
with its newly made wings proceed 
in its cycle of destruction in the 
apple blossoms. The destruction 
spread broadcast by that creature 
is the penalty we pay for the de- 
struction of our native birds and 
failure to protect them from their 
natural enemies and their import- 
ed enemy, the English Sparrow. 
The hundreds of thousands of dol- 
lars that we send annually to 
Washington and Oregon for fruit 
would remain in our coffers, if we 
had been half as careful ol: the Blue 
Bird as we have been of our poli- 
ticians. 

The little beauty is the third bird 
to come in the spring time. First 
the Song Sparrow, next the E-obin 

55 



BIRDS THAT WORK FOR US 



and usually, about two days after- 
ward, the Blue Bird. And out in 
the orchard he is seen^ sitting about 
on the apple tree limb, four or iive 
feet from the ground, looking 
downw^ard, saying a few words oc- 
casionally to his bride; maybe tell- 
ing her how lucky she has been to 
keep up the flight northward with 
him, for now the wedding feast 
proper will begin, and every min- 
ute or two from sunny morn to 
dewy eve, down he will fall from 
those lunbs, gathering those sleep- 
ing worms, cocoons, breaking the 
shells and eating what to him is 
more valuable than the wedding 
cake to you, good friend. All the 
time that the Blue Bird and his 
bride are having their first two or 
three meals in the orchard they are 
thinking of their summer home, for 
it is a well-known law in Nature 
that migratory birds rear their 
young in the coldest part of all the 
territory visited by them during 
the year. Would you like to help 

56 



THE BLUE BIRD 

increase the stock of these apple- 
birds? Then cater to their nature. 
Don't seek to change it. Place some 
boxes made solid and substantial 
with an entrance about one and 
one-half inches square close to the 
bottom. Do you see, reader, that 
when you are doing that you are 
furnishing a home about the dist- 
ance from the ground that the blue 
birds of fifty years ago liked to 
have ? And, therefore, you are get- 
ting in harmony with the traditions 
of that family. Maybe, with your 
ideas of what birds ought to do you 
will place that nest ten or fifteen 
feet from the ground, but when you 
do you are making a home for 
the English Sparrow; knowing 
that the boys do not like him, 
he will take any box or home 
out of the boy's reach, but 
will not come to within four 
feet of the ground for the purpose 
of raising his young. The Blue 
Bird knows that there is not one 
boy in all this good old Hoosier 

57 



BIRDS TEAT WORK FOR US 

State that will harm him, nor his 
home, and therefore, if every lover 
of Blue Birds should, for three 
years adopt the little simple sug- 
gestion above we would have our 
quota; our apples would again be 
practically free from insect pests; 
our orchards and gardens would 
have the little beauties flitting 
about them as in the olden times. 



W 



58 



THE SWIFT SWALLOW 

THE Swift Swallow is a bird of 
great mystery and value. It 
is probable that the protec- 
tion of the Swift Swallow is of more 
importance in America today than 
are all the iron clad ships and gun 
boats built by Uncle Sam or to be 
built in the next half century. We 
can have peace without powder, but 
we can't have prosperity without 
the aid of the air scavengers, and 
this bird, the Swift Swallow, is eas- 
ily at the head of his class in that 
line. 

He comes to Indiana during 
April and it is a very easy matter 
to say that he comes from the sun- 
ny south. We know that for three 
weeks before his appearance in In- 
diana he has been flying about over 
the southern States, but I doubt 

59 



BIRDS THAT WORK FOR US 

very much whether anybod}^ knows 
where he has been the three 
months before his appearance in 
our southland. 

Some young folks, wanting to air 
their knowledge of birds, say that 
he hibernates and burrows into 
the mud about the Gulf of Mexico, 
spending his winter time as do our 
German Carp fish. Maybe they are 
right, but I spent three months and 
a good many dollars tvjmg to get 
to see a swift swallow alive in the 
w^inter time, and failed. The main 
colony of Swifts is preceded by 
some scouts, whose business it is to 
discover proper camping places for 
the main body. About the middle 
of April they appear, and flying 
over our State, make careful in- 
spection of tall chimnej^s, hoping 
to find such commodious quarters 
that they may return to their 
friends and guide them to their 
summer bedroom. 

There will come a time in the his- 
tory of this good old Hoosier State 

60 



THE SWIFT SWALLOW 

when we shall be just as careful to 
provide those summer bed rooms 
for the Swift Swallow as we are 
now careful to build great taber- 
nacles for eloquent evangelists. 

A colony of three hundred or 
three thousand Swift Swallows, cir- 
cling about a tall chimney at sun- 
down, presents an interesting Na- 
ture Study. Just at twilight a sig- 
nal is given by the leader and down 
into that chimney those winged 
creatures disappear. Daybreak in 
the morning, and out from the 
chimney top they go for the pur- 
pose of doing their day's w^ork as 
set apart for them in the economy 
of nature. Let us precede them a 
moment, and take a bird's eye view 
of their task. We have many varie- 
ties of beetles. One of them with 
which this article has to do is the 
mother of the wire worm. She goes 
to the blades of dead grass in the 
timothy field in the fall and de- 
posits from two to four hundred 
eggs. Those eggs will cling to that 

61 



BIRDS THAT WORK FOR US 

leaf through the winter time and 
not affected by snow and sleet, will 
remain fertile until spring. They 
are hatched and develop into the 
wire worm, the greatest enemy and 
pest of the pasture and hay field. 
In my philosophy, that click beetle, 
flying above the meadow in the 
spring, siunmer and fall time, is 
the prepared food of this mysteri- 
ous Swift Swallow. He loves to 
spend the night time in the tall 
chimney in town, where he has se- 
curity from pests and enemies, but 
his day time life is on and over the 
farm. He is so conditioned for 
flight that he does not even have 
to alight to get a drink of water, 
and when he becomes thirsty flies 
over the creek or pond and scoops 
a drop or two without lessening his 
speed. 

Tremendous activity demands a 
vast amount of combustion. How 
many click beetles, gentle reader, 
do you suppose the Swift Swallow 
will gather in one day? Surely 

62 



THE SWIFT SWALLOW 

three a minute ; sixty minutes in an 
hour and ten hours in a day. Every 
town could and should have a col- 
ony of one thousand swift swal- 
lows. Therefore, at the above ra- 
tio, 1,800,000 insects per day would 
be their reasonable rations. When 
those insects are not destroyed we 
lose our most valuable northern 
crop from the ravages of the wire 
worm. 

So much for good old Hoosier 
State. Now, about our whole coun- 
try. The secretary of agriculture 
in Washington City, is begging the 
people in the northland for more 
swallows in the southland, because, 
in his bulletin. Circular No. 56, he 
says that success in the cotton 
fields must depend in the future 
very largely upon ridding the fields 
of destructive insects through the 
helpful work of the birds. 



^ 



63 



THE PURPLE MARTIN 

THE Purple Martin belongs to 
the Swallow family and 
comes to Northern Indiana 
the first, second or third day of 
April each jeav and is now one of 
our most dependent birds. 

How different his life of today 
from his living of one hundred 
years ago. Then he was consid- 
ered the sacred bird of the In- 
dians and was attracted to their 
tents by all kinds of gourds and 
boxes that he might use for a nest- 
ing place. 

The Indian's reverence for this 
bird was, probably, the result of 
superstition. Would to God that 
we might become superstitious and 
have several sacred birds. The 
Purple Martin, immediately upon 
his arrival, commences seeking a 

64 



TEE PURPLE MARTIN 

home. He wants something in the 
nature of the home furnished by 
the Indians. The ideal, in my phi- 
losophy, is a box eighteen inches 
square, divided into four rooms, 
with the partitions extending only 
half way to the top and doors two 
inches square, directly on the floor 
of each room; the box to be placed 
on a pole twelve to eighteen feet 
above the ground, out in the open. 
If the box should be placed in a 
live tree or on a pole, close to the 
foliage that will obscure the home, 
then it will not be occupied, for the 
Purple Martin is so fond of his 
children to be that he will only 
have them where, as he flits 
through the air, gathering food for 
them he may see their resting place 
and where he may be able at any 
time to dart to their protection. 

Given that home, and ten or 
twelve boxes may be placed on the 
same pole, for he is a domestic bird, 
and loves to nest in colonies, the re- 
sult to you, kind reader, will prac- 

65 



BIRDS THAT WORK FOR US 

tically be as follows: First, your 
soul will tell you that you have been 
kind to a little creature that could 
not help itself; second, in about 
fourteen days four little birds and 
mania and papa caring for them. 
More than one hundred times a 
day they will visit those children 
carrying, each visit, from five to 
two hundred insects. 

The mosquitoes, gnats and flying 
ants are the especial delight of 
j^oung Purple Martins. The num- 
ber of mosquitoes destroyed by one 
pair of those Martins in a season is 
beyond computation. 

Eleven years ago the grounds 
surrounding Winsome Winona 
Lake, Indiana, were infested dur- 
ing the summer season by mosqui- 
toes. I have often seen hundreds 
of ladies sitting in the Chatauqua 
Auditorium holding lighted rat- 
tans by their faces in order that the 
smoke might keep the mosquitoes 
awaj^ while they listened to the 
lectures and music. The officers of 

66 



TEE PURPLE MARTIN 

the association began casting about 
for remedies. They sought the man 
with the crude petroleum who 
could put it on the stagnant water 
and destroy mosquitoes by that 
process. They looked to latter day 
science for remedies, but while 
they were looking they were 
shrewd enough to counsel with 
some old time Hoosiers and were 
told that those mosquitoes were bird 
food and that they should get more 
air scavengering birds to Winsome 
Winona Lake. They erected ten 
Purple Martin homes that year. 
Every one of them was occupied. 
Next year they erected more 
homes, and so on each year until 
last year they had more than eight 
hundred pairs of Purple Martins 
flitting through the air above that 
delightful, blessed spot. The light- 
ed rattans are gone and gone for- 
ever. The places that ten years 
ago were deserted in the evenings 
on account of mosquitoes are now 
.overs' Lanes. 

67 



BIRDS THAT WORK FOR US 

Many times, last year, I spent an 
hour in the evening time, seated be- 
neath the Purple Martin homes, on 
McDonald Island, thinking of the 
changed conditions and seeing the 
procession go by. O, happy, happy 
Chautauqua visitors, having a 
summer's rest at the most delight- 
ful spot on this earth; happy, 
young preacher, walking beneath 
those bell-elm and those weeping 
willow trees, quoting poetry to the 
school mistress, doing post-gradu- 
ate work in Winona College. Hap- 
py preacher, as free from mosqui- 
toes and turmoil, he was building a 
little air castle of the years to come, 
when, maybe, that same teacher by 
his side would be his bride. Happy, 
happy school mistress as she was 
when, it might be, she would have 
a beau that would quote more ice- 
cream and less poetry. 

Our southern country has been, 
for the past few years, threatened 
with the destruction of the cotton 
industry. The creature that has 

68 



THE PURPLE MARTIN 

brought such havoc under that sun- 
ny sky is not quite as large as an 
ordinary house fly, and called the 
Mexican Cotton Boll Weevil. In 
another chapter I shall go into de- 
tail with reference to its life. The 
ablest men that money would em- 
ploy were sent by the National and 
State governments to study that 
creature and suggest remedies. 
One of the results of all that inves- 
tigation has been the issuing by the 
government of a bulletin entitled 
^^ Value of Swallows as Insect De- 
stroyers/' Circular No. 56, Bureau 
of Biological Survey. That bulle- 
tin can be obtained from any con- 
gressman for the asking, and 
should be in the hands of every 
school teacher north of Mason and 
Dixon's line. In it the value of the 
Purple Martin as a natural re- 
source is well defined and conser- 
vation patriotically demanded. 

And so, kind reader, if you shall 
conserve the Purple Martin about 
your home, you will not only be 

69 



BIRDS TEAT WORK FOB US 

having the air in that immediate vi- 
cinity scavengered, but you will be 
furnishing for the cotton fields of 
the south a beautiful machine al- 
most as important as the cotton gin 
itself; for without the birds, in ten 
years from today, the cotton gins of 
the south would be left to rust and 
ruin from lack of work. 



W 



70 



THE BROWN THRUSH 

I GIVE the story of this sweet 
musician just as my mother 
gave it to me, more than fifty 
years ago. We lived at that time 
in the midst of a great forest, in 
Carroll county, Indiana, surround- 
ed by the giant trees, wild bees and 
birds. Mother told me that God 
wanted to be and was very kind to 
the people who were living away 
from their neighbors and who, on 
account of their isolation were like- 
ly to become lonesome. And that, 
therefore. He had taught the Brown 
Thrush to furnish the sweetest mu- 
sic outside of heaven for us. She 
taught me that the ideal homing 
place of that creature was the 
great, old fashioned brush heap; 
and that when the pioneer had fall- 
en the trees, hewn the logs and built 

71 



BIRDS TEAT WORK FOR US 

Ms log cabin, the brush heap in the 
clearing would soon be a music 
stand. That into that brush heap 
the female Thrush would go and, 
making a home in the center, would 
have her four eggs, then four chil- 
dren, and care for them tenderly, 
and that her husband would take 
his position in the tree top and 
furnish sweet music for all hearers; 
that that music was intended orig- 
inally for his little wife in the brush 
heap, but was expected to reach 
and cheer the lonesome pioneer. 

It might be, gentle reader, that 
you would like to have some music 
such as we old timers had in the hal- 
cyon days gone by. If so, when cut- 
ting out the limbs in the orchard do 
not burn the brush. Make a great 
pile of them over in the corner of 
the orchard farthest away from 
your residence. That brush heap 
to the brown thrush is just what 
the tin can is to the wren, just what 
your home is for you. Maybe your 
neighbors will criticize you for 

72 



THE BROWN THRUSH 

leaving that ungainly sight in the 
corner of your orchard, but you will 
have the satisfaction of knowing 
that you are trying to serve your 
God by getting in harmony with 
one of His thoughts, for the laws of 
nature are the thoughts of God. 



^ 



73 



THE BEE BIRD 

THE Bee Bird, really the King 
Bird or Gray Martin, is call- 
ed the Bee Bird because of its 
habit of feeding on honey bees. It 
is one of the greatest curiosities in 
all the realm of Nature Study. The 
man who goes to its home, chums 
with it for two or three days, dis- 
covers that no difference how many 
years he may have been a student, 
there are some things about its life 
and living that he cannot compre- 
hend. He may just as well try to 
think of a time at an early date 
when there could have been a be- 
ginning of time. 

The Bee Bird comes to us late in 
the spring, not nearly so early as 
our Robins because living exclus- 
ively on insects, their breakfast, 
dinner and supper are not ready 

74 



THE BEE BIRD 

earlier in the season. They prefer 
a home in the old apple tree, close 
to the house or barn. They like to 
make their home there because 
part of their work is close to the 
poultry yard where the young 
chickens, turkeys and ducks are to 
be their near neighbors. Quickly a 
home is made in the forks of the 
limbs and into it are placed four or 
five eggs, then a little later, four 
or five hungry children. For about 
twenty-one days those children are 
the hungriest creatures in the 
neighborhood and must have each 
day one-half their weight in insect 
life. Enormous amount of food is 
gathered entirely from the air and 
consists of living, fljdng insects. 

And while the father and mother 
are so living in the orchard about 
the home, they are properly called 
the King Birds for the reason that 
that vicinity is their kingdom as 
far as all other feathered creatures 
are concerned. The}^ do not hesi- 
tate for one instant to attack the 

75 



BIRDS THAT WORK FOR US 

most rapacious Hawk or Crow or 
Eagle that flies. They are aware 
that at the base of the brain of all 
animals having brains there is a 
very tender, delicate spot. Reader, 
do you just now remember a time 
when somebody right quickly turn- 
ed a few hairs at the base of your 
brain upward, and do you remem- 
ber what you said? The King Bird 
knows of these few delicate feath- 
ers at the base of the brain of all 
other birds and, flying above them, 
grabbing one or two of those feath- 
ers, throws the Hawk or Crow into 
a panic, makes him so far forget his 
hunger and appetite as to leave 
that barn-yard instantly, regard- 
less of the presence of flocks of 
young chickens beneath him. A 
pair of King Birds nesting over a 
poultry yard are worth five dollars 
a year as protectors of the domestic 
fowls. 

Years ago it was known to bee 
keepers that this same bird had a 
fondness for bees, and hundreds of 

76 



THE BEE BIRD 

thousands of them have been ruth- 
lessly killed because of their appe- 
tite in that direction. Pity for us, 
pity that we should have thought 
our Father provided the bee with 
its brilliancy to make honey for us 
and then provided a bird to destroy 
His own wise provision. And so, 
men who believe that the ^^Laws of 
Nature are the thoughts of God," 
began closer study; many of the 
Bee Birds were killed for labora- 
tory purposes. I have examined 
several stomachs of Bee Birds kill- 
ed immediately after their feeding 
close to the bee hive. The develop- 
ments have been astonishing. First, 
many robber flies were found, and 
then many bee moths, the bee moth 
itself, an interesting creature be- 
cause of its habit of flying only af- 
ter night and because of its ability 
to slip past the bees into the hive 
and deposit an egg that the bees 
cannot destroy, and then several 
bees making altogether ordinarily 
from eighty to one hundred and 

77 



BIRDS THAT WORK FOR US 

twenty insects in the craw. The ex- 
amination of such a craw must re- 
sult in the student ^s giving the Bee 
Bird credit with feeding on two in- 
sects very harmful to the bee and 
honey industry, but the appearance 
of the little dead bees must leave 
him in wonderment, unless he shall 
go to further study and when he 
does this he will be bewildered with 
the brilliancy of the Bee Bird in 
yonder tree. For upon close ex- 
amination the dead bees will be dis- 
covered to be drones, not any of 
them having the stinger provided 
in Nature's economy as a sword to 
be used by the working bee for her 
protection as she lives her life. In 
other words, the Bee Bird is so 
bright that he can distinguish be- 
tween the drone bee without a stin- 
ger and the working bee with a 
stinger while the bees are flying in 
the air. 

I am not called the Bee Man en- 
tirely on account of my beauty, but 
largely on account of the fact that 

78 



THE BEE BIRD 

after long study and experience, I 
am able to deliver fairly good lect- 
ures on the subject of bees. My 
hair is whitening with the snow 
that never melts. More than fifty 
years ago I hunted and studied the 
wild bees in our Hoosier forests, 
and yet, that little Bee Bird, six 
months old, can select the harmless 
one when flying in the air and I 
cannot. 



W 



79 



THE 

CHIPPING SPARROW 

AND THE CAT-BIRD 

STRONG combination for a clin- 
ic in nature study. The Chip- 
ping sparrow is one of the 
very smallest of our native birds 
and yet, one of the most in- 
dependent. The Cat Bird is one of 
our sweetest singing, large birds, 
and very dependent. 

The Chipping Sparrow comes to 
us and asks only for the privilege 
of blessing our lives with his little 
presence and work. He belongs to 
the weaver family and is able to 
gather the hairs from about the 
barn and weave them into a perfect 
home. He weaves that home in 
the crotch of the tree so perfectly 
that the summer and winter 
storms do not destroy it. Into it 



CHIPPING SPARROW— CAT BIRD 

four eggs, and then four babies; 
far more than seventy-five times a 
day does the Sparrow gather food 
for those babies about the size of 
half a minute. Let us see that 
papa and mama gather food. 

Come with me, children, out 
among the blackberry or rasp- 
berry bushes. Let us conceal our- 
selves and keep very quiet. Pres- 
ently we hear the chip, chip, chip 
of an industrious mother as she 
goes, putting her bill under the 
leaves on the blackberry stock and 
gathering a mouthful of little green 
worms; then off to her children 
and back again, all day long, visit- 
ing the berry bushes adjacent to 
her home. And what of that food? 
Why, it is the w^orm condition of 
the berry boll, a little creature not 
nearly so large as a house fly that 
has flown around among the bush- 
es, and under the leaves deposited 
those hundreds of eggs; those eggs 
have hatched and the little worms 
are eating holes through the 

81 



BIRDS THAT WORK FOR US 

leaves; and wliat are the leaves'? 
Wh-y, simplv the wind-pipes and 
stomach through which the bushes 
breathe and by which they digest 
their food. If those wind-pipes 
and stomachs are punctured and 
destroyed by worms, the bush can- 
not breathe and eat properly and 
the berries will be little, dwarfed 
ones, but if the little Chipping 
Sparrow shall have free access 
about the orchard and garden, then 
will the bushes breathe, the blos- 
soms bloom and the berries grow 
for you. 

The Cat Bird of fifty years ago 
was a forest bird, not given to 
home making in the towns. The 
forests have been partly destroyed 
and mam^ of those that are still 
called forests are not forests in 
Cat Bird philosophy; for he wants 
the old-thne wild plum tree and 
the fox grape vine; the pavrpaw 
and the black haw blossom. He 
wants a bush with dense foliage, 
where, from five to ten feet from 



CHIPPING SPARROW— CAT BIRD 

the ground he may have Ms home 
and see and know of the proceed- 
ings in that neighborhood without 
his wife on the nest being seen or 
known. 

The changed conditions, the cut- 
ting down and destroying of the 
underbrush in the country have 
changed his nature and made a 
town bird of him. He knows now 
that he can find the lilac, the sy- 
ringa, the dwarf trees and many 
other bushes suited to his purpose 
right amidst the very people for 
whom he desires to sing and work. 
And so with his changed habits 
and dependence, he comes to our 
towns confident of finding his ideal 
nesting place. 

Would you help him a little, gen- 
tle reader? Then, remember that 
the syringa bush in your back yard 
with its branches hanging out- 
ward, toward the ground is not ful- 
ly suited to his tastes. But, if 
you will take a stout twine string 
and pull those branches together, 

83 



BIRDS THAT WORK FOR US 

the growing foliage will soon make 
just the dense place the musician 
wants. It will take you, probably, 
five minutes to get that bush in 
proper shape to be used as a foun- 
dation for his home. The blossoms 
will bloom just as sweetly for you; 
the string hasn^t cost you any- 
thing; but you have been just as 
much of a missionary in that kind- 
ly act as is anybody who goes to 
India for reform purposes. Then 
follows a home made out of the 
bark of grape vines, dead twigs 
from little bushes and in its cen- 
ter fifty or sixty cotton strings, if 
he can get them; then eggs and 
children and the mother flitting 
about all day, gathering food for 
those children and with the musi- 
cian in the afternoon, perched on 
some prominent music stand, sing- 
ing sweet music for his sweetheart 
and you listening, as you have a 
right to now, for you have helped 
the bird to accomplish the great 
end of its life, raise a family. 

84 



THE ENGLISH SPARROW 

THE English Sparrow is not an 
English bird at all, but is 
fashioned for life in far away 
Russia, where, like all of God's 
creatures, it has a valuable relation 
to human life. 

Some lunatic foolishly imported 
a few pairs of them into our coun- 
try less than fifty years ago. They 
have increased in number so rapid- 
ly that for the past three years I 
have always been able to open the 
window of any High School in 
which I was talking and hear the 
hateful chirp of that harmful bird. 

It is the present pest and coming 
curse of America. It is credited by 
a few people with doing some good, 
but the harm it does so far out- 
weighs and overbalances its good 
acts as to make it the greatest ca- 

85 



BIRDS THAT WORK FOR US 

lamity ever brought to our country. 
In the next twenty-five years it will 
absolutely exterminate many of 
our most valuable native species. 
It is now getting so abundant on 
the farms that it will soon be a 
great pest in every wheat and oats 
field, as it lights on the ripening 
grain, hoping to get one or two 
morsels of that milky food, but in 
the getting tearing down and ruin- 
ing the whole stalk. 

The principal harm of which it 
is guilty at present consists in its 
destruction of our native birds. Be- 
ing a northern bird it does not have 
to migrate during the winter as do 
our natives and therefore, remain- 
ing all the time with us, considers 
our migratory birds interlopers 
when they return in the spring 
time. The creature is not to blame 
for that. We brought it here, and 
it but acts in accordance with our 
nature, in the protection of its 
home from an intruder. 

The Blue Bird, the third of our 

86 



TEE ENGLISH SPARROW 

natives to arrive in the spring tinie, 
and so valuable in the orchard, 
finds the holes in trees or boxes al- 
read}^ pre-empted and occupied by 
the Sparrow. The Purple Martin, 
so valuable as an air scavenger, not 
only with us but in the sunny south 
also, over the cotton fields, finds 
that all of the places ten or fifteen 
feet above the ground where he 
could make his home, have already 
the Sparrow's nest there. The same 
is true of all of our Wrens and 
other box-nesting birds. 

Our Baltimore Oriole comes just 
as the blossoms are blooming in the 
apple tree, hoping to visit those 
blossoms and make a hundred 
meals a day off the insects and 
insect eggs that he can find in those 
apple trees, wishing also for a cozy 
home, where he may rear children, 
but finds that the Sparrow has 
gathered up all of the strings in the 
neighborhood, and carried them in- 
to the church steeple, the school 
house cupola, the old barn, the de- 



BIRDS THAT WORK FOR US 

serted factory building, with which 
to line his nest. 

Many remedies, and most of 
them foolish, some of them suicidal, 
are suggested. In many cities a re- 
ward of two or three cents a head is 
paid for their killing. The states- 
man who would give reward for 
English Sparrow's heads ought to 
have a guardian. He is trying to 
legislate on a subject of which he 
knows nothing, and instead of be- 
ing a benefactor to his constituents, 
becomes a malefactor. The first 
bird that comes to us in the spring- 
time is the Song Sparrow, one of 
our native Sparrows, one of High 
Heaven's favorite bandmasters, 
and there is not one boy in any city 
in Indiana who can distinguish 
between our male Song Sparrow 
and the male English Sparrow 
without hearing their voices. 
Therefore, when the boys go out to 
win a little prize of two or three 
cents per head, killing English 
Sparrows, they denude our country 



THE ENGLISH SPARROW 

of one of its loveliest birds, one of 
the very creatures that, by its earl- 
iest spring music, is an uplift to the 
very boy who kills it. Another 
remedy suggested is poison, arsen- 
ic and strychnine. Even if the 
other birds were to be free from the 
eating of poison put out for the 
English Sparrow, this remedy 
must be condemned for the reason 
that in our country we believe in 
the Golden Eule. 

And as the English Sparrow is 
not here of its own volition, we 
have not the right to maltreat it. 
We are in duty bound to be hu- 
mane. 

When the people shall be fully 
informed as to the results that will 
follow^ the ever increasing number 
of English Sparrows, then enlight- 
ened action will be taken. Bird 
wardens will be appointed for cer- 
tain territory as is now indicated to 
mail carriers. Their duty will be 
to destroy carefully every English 
Sparrow's nest in their jurisdiction 



BIRDS THAT WORK FOR US 

on the first day of March; and then 
again on the 15th day of March, 
and so on during March, April, 
May, June and August for six 

years. The Sparrow is a tenacious 

t/ J. 

creature and will commence re- 
building immediately after each 
destruction, but if the visits of the 
warden are properly made the 
Sparrow will not be able to propa- 
gate its species, but will spend his 
time building homes. The result 
of such a plan would be the practi- 
cal extermination of the Sparrow 
in six years, for his life-cycle is a 
little less than five and one-half 
years. The government of the 
United States could bring about 
the absolute control of the English 
Sparrow without the killing of 
one bird and at less expense than is 
involved in the building of two bat- 
tleships. 



W^ 



90 



THE SONG SPARROW 

The Closing Chapter on Birds 

Teacher: 

Good-bye. I thank you that you 
have looked through my book, that 
3^ou have read several chapters to 
your pupils. Maybe their lives and 
the lives of the people with whom 
they are to associate will be made 
better as the years go by. I thank 
you for the martyrdom and in this 
my last chapter, I am going to try 
and furnish something in your 
realm. In order to do so, I have to 
quote bodily the story of the Song 
Sparrow, as w^ritten by the man 
that in my philosophy is the great- 
est bird man that ever trod our 
earth : 

^^The Song Sparrow, one of our 
most familiar birds, claims our first 

91 



BIRDS TEAT WORK FOR US 

attention as the earliest visitant 
and latest resident of all the tune- 
ful land, and one that is universal- 
h^ known and admired. He is 
plain in his vesture, undistinguish- 
ed from the female by any superi- 
ority of plumage. He comes forth 
in the spring and takes his depart- 
ure in the autumn in the same suit 
of russet and gray by which he is 
alwaA^s identified. In March, be- 
fore the violet has ventured to peep 
out from the southern slope of the 
pasture or the sunny brow of the 
hill, while the northern skies are 
liable at any hour to pour down a 
storm of sleet or snow, the Song 
Sparrow, beguiled by southern 
winds, has already appeared, and 
on still mornings may be heard 
warbling his few merry notes, as if 
to make the earliest announcemc^nt 
of his arrival. He is therefore the 
true harbinger of spring; and, if 
not the sweetest songster, he has 
the merit of bearing to men the 
earliest tidings of the opening year, 

92 



THE SONG SPARROW 

and of proclaiming the first vernal 
promises of the season. As the 
notes of those birds that sing only 
in the night come with a double 
charm to our ears, because they are 
harmonized by silence and hallow- 
ed by the hour that is sacred to re- 
pose, in like manner does the Song 
Sparrow delight us in tenfold 
measure, because he sings the 
sweet prelude to the universal 
hymn. 

His haunts are fields half culti- 
vated and bordered with wild 
shrubbery. He is somew^hat more 
timid than the Hair-Bird, that 
comes close up to our doorsteps to 
find the crumbs that are swept 
from our tables. Though his voice 
is constantly heard in the garden 
and orchard, he selects a retired 
spot for his nest, preferring not to 
trust his progeny to the doubtful 
mercy of the lords of creation. In 
some secure retreat, under a tus- 
sock of moss or a tuft of low shrub- 
bery, the female sits upon her nest 

93 



BIRDS THAT WORK FOR US 

of soft dry grass, containing four 
or five eggs of a greenish- white sur- 
face covered with brownish specks. 
Beginning in April, she rears two 
and often three broods during the 
season, and lier mate prolongs his 
notes until the last brood has flown 
from the nest. 

^^The notes of the Song Sparrow 
would not entitle him to rank with 
our principal singing birds, were it 
not for the remarkable variations 
in his song, in which I think he is 
equalled by no other bird. Of these 
variations there are six or seven 
that may be distinctly recognized, 
differing enough to be considered 
separate tunes, but they are all 
based upon the same theme. The 
bird does not warble these in regu- 
lar succession. It is in the habit of re- 
peating one of them several times, 
then leaves it and repeats another 
in a similar manner. Mr. Charles 
S. Paine, of East Randolph, Massa- 
chusetts, was, I believe, the first to 
observe this habit of the Song Spar- 

94 



TEE SONG SPARROW 

row. He took note, on one occa- 
sion, of the number of times a par- 
ticular bird sang each of the tunes. 
As he had numbered them, the bird 
sang No. 1, 21 times; No. 2, 36 
times; No. 3, 23 times; No. 4, 19 
times; No. 5, 21 times; No. 6, 32 
times; No. 7, 18 times. He made 
the same experiment with a dozen 
different individuals; and was con- 
fident that each male has his seven 
songs, or variations of the theme, 
and they are equally irregular in 
the order of singing them. 

After reading Mr. Paine 's let- 
ter I listened carefully to the Song 
Sparrow, in the summer of 1857, 
that I might learn to distinguish 
the different tunes, as reported by 
him. I had never thought of it be- 
fore; but in less than a week I could 
distinctly recognize the whole 
seven, and v/as convinced that his 
observations were perfectly cor- 
rect. It is remarkable that when 
one povrerful singer takes up a par- 
ticular tune, other birds in the vi- 

95 



BIRDS THAT WORK FOR US 

cinity will follow with the same. 
These are mostly in triple time, 
some in common time, while in oth- 
ers the time could not be distin- 
guished. Each tune, however, con- 
sists of four bars or strains, some- 
times five, though late in the sea- 
son the song is frequently broken 
off at the end of the third strain. 
This habit of varying his notes 
through so many changes, and the 
singularly fine intonations of many 
of them, entitle the Song Sparrow 
to a very high rank as a singing 
bird. 

There is a plain difference in 
the expression of these several va- 
riations. The one which I have 
marked No. 3 is very plaintive, and 
is in common time. No. 2 is the one 
which I have most frequently 
heard. No. 5 is querulous and un- 
musical. There is a remarkable 
precision in the Song Sparrow's 
notes, and the finest singers are 
those which, in the the language of 
musicians, display the least execu- 

96 



TEE SONG SPARROW 

tion. Some blend their notes to- 
gether so rapidly and promiscuous- 
ly, and use so many operatic flour- 
ishes, that if all were like them it 
would be impossible to distinguish 
the seven different variations in 
the song of this bird. 

Whether these tunes of the 
Song Sparrow express to his 
or to others of his species different 
messages, or whether they are the 
offspring of mere caprice, I can- 
not determine. Nor have I learn- 
ed whether a certain hour of the 
day or a certain state of the 
weather predisposes the bird to 
sing a particular tune. This point 
may perhaps be determined by 
some future observer, who may dis- 
cover that the birds of this species 
have their matins and their ves- 
pers, their songs of rejoicing and 
their notes of complaint, of court- 
ship when in search of their mate, 
and of encouragement and solace 
when she is sitting upon her nest. 
Since Nature has a benevolent ob- 

97 



BIRDS THAT WORK FOR US 

ject in every instinct bestowed up- 
on her creatures, it is not probable 
that this habit of the Song Spar- 
row is one that serves no important 
end in his life and habits. All the 
variations of his song are given be- 
low; and though individuals differ 
in their singing, the notes will af- 
ford a good general idea of the sev- 
eral tunes: 



No. U Itaemfc -IM- ^-P- -^-^ 





J 



THE TOAD 

AND THE 

BUMBLE BEE 



4 



THE TOAD 

RECENTLY we have been 
hearing much concerning nat- 
ural resources and the ne- 
cessity for conserving them. It is 
said that great forests will be 
planted and many millions of acres 
of ground irrigated. In all the 
newspaper articles on the subject 
of conservation I have not noticed 
any attempts to conserve the toad. 
I, therefore, give this little story 
of his life and will follow it with 
the story of the life of the bumble- 
bee with the full belief that proper 
care and conservation of those two 
creatures is of much more import- 
ance to our country than all of the 
irrigation schemes fostered by the 
government. Those great irriga- 
tion plants will, in the next twenty- 
five years, practically all become of 
little value for the reason that in 

103 



TEE TOAD 

the greater number of them the 
ground watered will become so 
thoroughly alkali as to be useless, 
while the two animals of which I 
now write, if cared for and fos- 
tered, will each year become more 
useful as time goes by. 

The toad is ordinarily considered 
an ugly creature and, to the casual 
observer he does not appear as 
beautiful as a Martha Washington 
rose, for he sits there on the 
ground, trying to look as much like 
a little clod of earth as he can. He 
knows his color is like the earth; he 
knows that his eye-lids look like 
warts, and he also knows that his 
best prospect for safety consists in 
his colorative protection. His hope 
is that the observer may fail to dis- 
cover him. If the ' ' casual ' ' observ- 
er will become a student of nature 
for an hour or two, seat himself 
seven or eight feet in front of the 
horrid creature and remain per- 
fectly quiet, he will observe that 
presently those warty looking eye- 

104 



THE TOAD 

lids have lain back like a hood, and 
out from that clod of earth are 
peering two of the prettiest, most 
brilliant eves in all animal life, not 
excepting your eyes, gentle reader. 

He is always hungry; always 
looking for food except when clos- 
ing his eyes for protective purposes 
and, if the nature student will now 
procure a brick-bat or piece of rot- 
ten wood, place on it a bit of burnt 
sugar and quietly place the sugar 
five inches from the toad's mouth, 
become seated and quiet again, he 
will soon be repaid in nature study 
for his trouble. Quickly the insects 
wall be attracted by the scorched 
sugar, and as they alight five or six 
or seven inches from that toad's 
mouth, out from that clod of dirt 
will shoot a toad's tongue, one of 
the greatest curiosities in all na- 
ture. About seven inches long 
with a little glue on the forked end; 
a glue so perfect that not one insect 
in fifty escapes from the toad's 
stomach after having come within 

105 



TEE TOAD 

reach of its tongue. An ordinary, 
full grown toad destroys from one 
hundred and fifty to one thousand 
insects every day and night of his 
life when he is not in the hibernat- 
ing condition. 

We have much complaint these 
times of damage from the pea 
weevil, of worms in the lettuce and 
radishes and many gardeners actu- 
ally regard that weevil and the rad- 
ish worm as pests, whereas they are 
simply food for other creatures 
with which our Father sought to in- 
habit this earth of his. If the gar- 
dener and the florist will provide 
themselves with a fair supply of 
toads and place them in the radish 
and lettuce bed, a few among the 
pea vines, others among the flower- 
ing shrubs and plants, they will be 
astonished at the results. 

Conservation of the toad consists 
first, in knowing that it is a very 
prolific animal; that a female will 
be mother to scores and scores of 
toads each year; that, like the mos- 

106 



THE TOAD 

quite, she must have some stag- 
nant pool to use as a breeding 
place. It is easy to make that pool; 
just a little hole in the ground 
where the waste water from the 
pump may run through it. She will 
leave her feeding place in the gar- 
den and find the pool very easily. 

The above reference to the pea 
weevil and radish worm makes it 
necessary to say something of in- 
sect life at this point. The pea 
weevil has a peculiar and interest- 
ing life to live. First, it is in the 
pea at seeding time and as the pea 
germinates in the ground it ma- 
tures and burrows out just before 
the pea vine commences blooming. 
It deposits an egg in the pea blos- 
som and, strange proposition in na- 
ture, that egg lives in the blossom 
and pea pod and green pea, going 
through the process of its evolu- 
tion into the winged creature of the 
year following. 

The radish worm is the larval 
condition of a very small beetle 

107 



THE TOAD 

that deposits its egg under the first 
leaf of the radish. That egg will 
hatch in a very little while and 
then, as a little worm, burrow into 
the young, tender radish root. The 
time for the destruction of the wee- 
vil and the beetle is not while they 
are in the pea or radish, but while 
they are preparing to deposit the 
egg, and then is the time for the 
toad on the ground and the feath- 
ered singing machine above him 
to have full welcome and opportu- 
nity in the garden. 






108 



THE BUMBLE BEE 

I AM to publish a little fifty cent 
book. My hope is that it will 
sell and be read by school chil- 
dren especially and, maybe, their 
parents. If the venture shall not 
be too costly to me then the first 
book will be followed by another on 
the subject ^^Bees, Birds and In- 
sects." In the second book I shall 
go into detail with reference to 
some of my own experiences in this 
good old Hoosier State where I 
have rambled for more than half a 
century, trying to Know things; 
trying to get other creatures to tell 
me the history of their lives while I 
chummed with them. 

The Bumble-Bee, to me, has been 
one of the most interesting of my 
studies. First, because my father 
believed in it and fostered it. I 
have the sweetest memory of a crop 

109 



TEE BUMBLE BEE 

of clover seed that he and I harvest- 
ed more than fifty years ago where 
the yield was eight and one-half 
bushels an acre, and the sale price 
six and one-half dollars a bushel and 
my father's claim that, as the field 
was full of bumble-bees, they had 
helped him to that prosperity. 

The bumble-bee is distinguished 
from other bees partly by its size, 
but its most interesting feature of 
difference is the length of its 
tongue and as I proceed to write 
about it I do so with reverence to 
its Creator and admiration for it 
because, if ever I should be as ex- 
pert in my business as the Bumble- 
Bee is in its business, then the 
world would beckon to me, offering 
me all the work I could do at fifty 
times my present schedule of 
prices. Its life history is practi- 
cally as follows : 

In October a colony of thirty 
bees, twelve queens, twelve drones 
and eight neutrals; then twelve 
weddings. From those twelve wed- 
no 



THE BUMBLE BEE 

ding ceremonies twelve husbands 
go quickly to their death beds; 
twelve fertilized queens seek a 
place where they may take a long, 
long sleep and revive again in the 
spring time. Their resting place is 
usually one or two inches beneath 
the home where they were reared. 
That home is usually a deserted 
mouse ^s nest or the rotted, punky 
wood in or by the side of a decayed 
rail or log. Their hope is that they 
may escape their enemies and that 
a little stored honey above their 
heads may be left and that when 
they shall recover, emaciated as 
they will be, they may have 
strength to burrow upward to those 
cells containing their prepared 
food. 

Not more than ten per cent, of 
the queens that go into hibernation 
are ever able to get to that stored 
honey again. The one that does 
will eat and presently have suffi- 
cient strength to fly very slowly. 
With returning strength comes am- 

111 



THE BUMBLE BEE 



bition to live her life as appointed 
to her by the law. She seeks an- 
other home never using the same 
nest twice, and as she feebly flies 
over the clover field and down 
along the fences, she has in her 
mind the ideal home. She wants a 
place where she may have just 
about one-half inch square of space 
and that one-half inch surrounded 
by soft, pliable, movable material; 
she desires to gather some pollen 
and form a little ball something 
larger than a pea and in that ball 
deposit part of the fertilized eggs 
that she knows she is carrying. She 
knows that within a very little 
while those eggs will hatch and, 
presently, be her full grown child- 
ren; and that then, with their as- 
sistance she may enlarge her home, 
and, therefore, wants material 
about her first ball of pollen that 
she and thej can move backward, 
enlarging their fioor space. This is 
the reason that the deserted 
mouse's nest or the soft, rotted, 

112 



TEE BUMBLE BEE 

punky wood is selected. In a lit- 
tle while some cells are made, more 
eggs are laid and as the eggs hatch 
in the little cells and the young 
bees emerge, the storing of honey 
for fall and winter uses is begun 
in the now unused, unoccupied 
ones. 

When we begin sure enough ob- 
servation of natural resources; 
w^hen we finally discover the great 
truth that God, Almighty God, the 
Author of the laws of nature, is the 
best farmer and fruit grower in the 
State, then that little widowed 
Bumble-Bee will not be compelled 
to search day after day for an 
insecure home ; then will homes 
be provided for her just as careful- 
ly as we now reserve the best bed 
room for the family preacher. Lit- 
tle boxes one foot square made out 
of old, worn boards, that may look 
absolutely useless, will be placed 
out in the clover field, close to the 
old stumps, along fences, and in 
similar protected places. Those 

113 



THE BUMBLE BEE 

boxes will have three or four holes 
bored into them half an inch in 
diameter. They will be filled 
three-fourths full of old clover 
hay, felt hats torn into shreds, de- 
cayed elm wood; to those boxes 
the Bumble-Bee will go and, find- 
ing just the ideal, just the brown 
stone front of her f ancj^ will enter, 
live, work and bless. 

Kind reader, let us go with her 
for a little while as she goes forth 
in the bright morning sunlight and 
get the story from her own lips. 
See her light on that red clover 
blossom, not gently, for that would 
not suit her purpose; heavily she 
seems to fall on it, shaking the 
plant as she lights. See that long 
tongue protrude and dart down in- 
to the sweet breakfast, dinner and 
supper stored for her in the bottom 
of that beautiful blossom. See the 
pollen gathering on her legs, wings 
and body. Watch her as fifteen or 
twenty times a minute she goes 
from blossom to blossom and all the 

114 



b^ 



THE BUMBLE BEE 

time, getting delicious, sweet food 
for herself and all the time doing 
valuable work for you. What is 
the work? Well, it is founded on 
the greatest law of nature; that is, 
that there is no life without the dis- 
tribution of pollen. Let us think 
for a moment of those blossoms out 
of which she is feeding. The red 
clover plant is, in itself a natural 
curiosity and as the years go by 
will become of inestimable value in 
our country, for it is the ideal fer- 
tilizer. Our good, old Hoosier 
farms are getting a little older each 
year; the necessity for new fertil- 
ity more pronounced. Hundreds 
of thousands of dollars are sent out 
of our borders for commercial fer- 
tilizers and yet, with all of the in- 
ventions and discoveries along that 
line the fact remains that the red 
clover plant is the ideal. It is ideal 
for three separate and distinct reas- 
ons. First, the nodules on the lower 
end of the growing root are com- 
posed of living organisms and as 

115 



THE BUMBLE BEE 

they live their lives beneath the 
ground they attract a current from 
the air of the very material needed 
in the ground. Second, as the roots 
of the clover stock decay they leave 
small holes in the ground that serve 
as perfect ventilators. Third, the 
clover hay made from the plant 
that has been acting as a fertilizer 
is very valuable in itself. The 
clover plant would become extinct 
in a few years without the distribu- 
tion of pollen, for every plant is 
either a male or a female. That pol- 
len may be distributed by blowing 
wind; it may be distributed by 
winged creatures, but winged crea- 
tures go to flowers whete they may 
reach with their tongues or legs the 
food they crave. The Bumble-Bee 
is practically the onlj^ one with suf- 
ficient length of tongue to reach the 
sugar and candy in the clover blos- 
soms and, therefore, she is the ideal 
fertilizer of Indiana's ideal fertil- 
izer. 



116 



THE BUMBLE BEE 

Bless the happy, happy day 
when our farms shall be again over- 
run with the bumble-bees as in my 
boyhood. 




117 



COMMERCIAL PRINTING COMPANY. MARION, INDIANA 



pll 



JUH 14 19«' 



One copy del. to Cat. Div. 



JUN 14 I^H 



n,H- ll'Mito W^^vfeyi^lia?^^ 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 

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